New Basement Laundry Tub

Finally. We replaced our basement laundry tubs today. This is something we had been talking about doing for at least ten years. They were pretty discolored and disgusting on the inside. The legs were rusting out too. Recently the sink started clogging up. There was obviously a blockage in the drain.

Fortunately the clog was in the actual tub drain pipe and not the main drain pipe. I knew this because the kitchen sink also emptied into that pipe and would have been backing up if that had been the location of the problem. I was using a drain snake and plunger to try to clear the clog but my efforts apparently made the situation worse. There had been a slight link in the tub drain for many years and a trickle of water always left the tub and landed on the floor where it ran to the main floor drain a few feet away. However, my plunger suddenly made that little leak into a splashing gusher that then flowed from under the sink over to that floor drain. 

So now I had both a major clog and a leak in the sink where our washing machine drained after each cycle. But it still was a critical major emergency plumbing problem because each time I ran the washing machine the sink would fill up and then drain to the floor under the sink and flow to the floor drain. There was a lot of splashing down there so I put an old storm window next to the sink which blocked the water coming from the tub leak and kept it all under the sink. 

This went on for several weeks but eventually I contacted the plumber on their website. I made arrangements online with T-Mark Plumbing, uploaded pictures of the problem and selected a time for the work a week later on Monday afternoon August 29th. A couple of days after making the appointment I called the office to verify everything and discovered the limitations of their online form and process. The office person said I needed to have someone come over and do a formal estimate before any work would be done. So... I made an appointment for an estimate visit on that Monday morning. The plumber came and there were no surprises including the cost. We had gotten an estimate several years ago to replace the tubs but this time there was a lot more work to be done including replacing the pipes coming and going from the tubs and clearing out the clog in the drain pipe. The next day we decided to go ahead with this job and not get estimates from other plumbers. The cost was in the range we were ready to pay. We scheduled the work for Tuesday morning Sept. 6th.

That was today and they came at around 10 am. A plumber and his helper. They were finished in just a little over an hour with all the work done and a new double tub. Everything is working fine.